photo from Cheri at the Raven Hill Discovery Center, used with permission
(Stonehenge replica on the left and moai on the far right.)
“At present our Stonehenge replica contains just the ‘bluestones’ of Stonehenge,” a note from Raven Hill tells us. Although it may look like a simple stone circle, great care has gone into stone placement, and the heel stone, altar stone and inner horseshoe are all represented.
It is part of the 30-acre Ancient World section of RHDC, which includes this Stonehenge, a Mayan ball court, an obelisk, a house foundation as from Skara Brae, and other things including–but of course!–a moai, or Easter Island head.
Now normally we lightly mock the moai/Stonehenge combination, using the penguin/polar bear analogy used here before, but we will cut Raven Hill some slack. We know it isn’t easy to attract the attention of the young. You might say Stonehenge and the moai are the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie of stone monuments. If you’re trying to reach kids, what could be better than putting both on the cover of your magazine, so to speak?* And including Skara Brae is a point in their favour!
Score: 5½ druids for the care and knowledge that went into this replica, despite no trilithons or ditch and bank. Raven Hill looks like an excellent place for a family day or several family days a year. See the comments for more info on this interesting and informative place!
*This does not let other Stonehenge/moai combiners off the hook. Sorry!
This from Cheri at Raven Hill: [About the Stonehenge replica] “The stones were laid out mathematically to the same scale as the original, thanks to Patrick Stonehouse, discoverer of Stonehouse Comet in 1998. Patrick has visited Stonehenge with a group of astronomers and was allowed to actually be “up close and personal” with the Trilithons.
Our Ancient World Exhibit covers 30 acres. We have 6 areas—Early Man, European, American, Asian, African and Oceana. Our goal is to make world history hands-on and personal for our visitors. For example, our obelisk is 10’ tall and carved out of a solid piece of limestone. We spent an entire year marking the shadow on the 21st of each month at every hour of daylight. The cast stones mark each point with the date and the time (Dec 21 at 2 pm for example). The stones form arched lines in the ground and visitors can read the time using the sun’s shadow to within 15 minutes of accuracy.”
Impressive. We wonder if they have that pesky druid problem they have in England!